Joan Fontaine A Brentwood Base for The Star of Rebecca and Suspicion

Joan Fontaine, the star of Rebecca and The Constant Nymph, won an Oscar for her portrayal of a shy bride in Suspicion. Of the award, she wrote, “That Oscar can be a jinx..It can…damage irreparably one’s relations with family, friends. It’s an uneasy head that wears the crown.”

Photography Courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

A flagstone path leads to the entrance of the Fordyce Road house, in Brentwood, which Fontaine shared with her second husband, William Dozier, and her daughters, Deborah and Martita. The redwood- and-shingle structure was destroyed in a fire in 1961.

Photography Courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Her sister, actress Olivia de Havilland, with whom she had a strained relationship, rarely visited. Fontaine once wrote, “I did not make the habit of inviting her to our dinner parties…for it was a sure way of losing the cook.” Fontaine and Dozier in the bar, about 1950.

Photography Courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Fontaine had a large book collection. After the fire, she recalled, “my mind’s eye swept every room in the house. The three rooms filled with bookshelves. First editions, signed copies by author friends, reference books now out of print. I realized that I’d started life anew.”

Photography Courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The couple favored a casual, informal lifestyle. In the living room, they mixed an upholstered sofa and wing chairs with English antiques and artworks. Two Staffordshire dogs rest on the mantel, above a Dutchtile fire surround. An 18th-centurystyle piecrust table is at left.

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A veteran of more than 30 films, many that took her all over the world, Fontaine searched for continuity in her private life. “I longed for stability, permanency and a place to belong,” she said. The master bedroom had a beam ceiling and windows with views of the Pacific.

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After daughter Deborah was born in 1948, Fontaine and Dozier added a wing to the house, which included a suite, guest rooms and a glass-walled room for parties. Wrought iron chairs and a table centered the space. The glass doors opened onto a garden.

Photography Courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

“The pond-sized pool with an island in the middle, waterfalls cascading into it from rocks above, a tropical garden, an orchard reminding me of La Paloma—all these things beguiled me,” the actress wrote in her 1978 autobiography, No Bed of Roses.